Unforgettable, that's what they are

By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY, @garystoller

Frequent business traveler Dave Army has been to about 50 countries and says the best restaurant he has dined at was on a boat, the Don Juan II, in Paris.

"We had a ride on the Seine River, the most delicious food ever, great wine and Paris at night," recalls the management consultant from Prescott, Ariz. "Who could ask for more?"

Seasoned business travelers eat at many fine restaurants throughout the world and fondly remember the ones they consider best. Some are a once-in-a-lifetime experience, while others earn repeat visits.

Travelers looking to experience the world's best restaurants for an unforgettable meal on a business trip may want to consider the choices in a new book, Foodie Top 100 Restaurants: Worldwide.

Thirteen renowned food critics, including Gael Greene, Patricia Wells and Ruth Reichl, and the book's editors chose 100 of the world's best restaurants in Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA.

Samir Arora, who edited and published the book, says it is a result of his personal need as a business traveler to find great restaurants. "I found myself asking, searching for recommendations for unique food experiences based on local critics and foodies."

Three quarters of the top 100 places in Foodie Top 100 Restaurants: Worldwide are in Japan, France and the USA, and more are in Japan -- 29 -- than in any other country.

They include Tokyo's Esquisse, which offers the modern French cuisine of chef Lionel Beccat on the seventh floor of a Ginza district high-rise.

"Like an expert watercolorist, Beccat blends Japanese ingredients with French techniques to create dishes such as a summer consommé with duck bouillon in which the dried duck meat is used like dried bonito to enrich the broth," the book raves.

France has 27 restaurants in the top 100, including 21 in Paris.

At Rino, located behind the Bastille in Paris' 11th Arrondissement, chef Giovanni Passerini reinvents bistro dining with mostly organic and innovative dishes, the book says.

Entrées include sardine ravioli dotted with dill in fennel broth and barley risotto with preserved lemon and fish eggs.

Twenty of the Top 100 restaurants are in the USA, but only in three places -- the New York and San Francisco metropolitan areas, and Chicago.

The New York area dominates, with 14 restaurants.

Manhattan's 19-seat Degustation "evokes the tapas bars of Spain" and has "touches of French, Japanese and even modernist cuisines," Foodie Top 100 Restaurants: Worldwide says.

Besides the USA, France and Japan, 11 other countries have restaurants in the top 100, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Monaco, China, India, Singapore and Australia.

At London's Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, chef Alain Ducasse "brings his signature French haute cuisine to a stunning London setting," Foodie Top 100 Restaurants: Worldwide says.

The restaurant's "sparkling centerpiece" is the Table Lumière, a six-person table "shrouded by a ceiling-to-floor veil of 4,500 shimmer fiber optics."

Ducasse's roast chicken, which has "an almost frothy texture" and a "fragrant" truffle sauce, "elevates the classic comfort food to luxurious heights," the book says.

In Spain, none of the country's three restaurants in the top 100 are in Madrid or Barcelona. Two -- Mugaritz in Errenteria and Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo -- are in northern Spain, and one, El Celler de Can Roca, is in Girona, about an hour's drive northeast of Barcelona.

Run by three brothers, El Celler de Can Roca is in an old stone villa and specializes in "wildly creative Catalan cuisine," the book says.

"Evidence of cutting-edge techniques can be found in every dish, including an elderflower infusion with cherries and smoked sardine, which one of our critics found utterly memorable."

Such creative dishes at other restaurants not in the book have made them No. 1 in the minds of many business travelers.

Army can still remember most of the delectable menu aboard the boat Don Juan IIin Paris, though it was eight years ago. "Caviar, foie gras, lobster claw salad, lamb chops and petit fours," he says.

Long-time business traveler Frederick Vaughan Plummer II, of Debary, Fla., found his best restaurant in June.

He says he has experienced a lot of great restaurants while traveling two-thirds of the year internationally for the last eight years, but none were like Le Monastere, situated on a hillside overlooking San José, Costa Rica.

"The location with 270-degree views of San José, the unique history of the building, the staff attentiveness and uniforms, the presentation and quality of the food was second to none," says Plummer, who works in the aircraft technical services industry. "It's not to be missed."

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